


A New Path

by azurefishnets



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: ...or was it?, Gen, Weird combos, it was all a dream!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:53:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurefishnets/pseuds/azurefishnets
Summary: Pigeon Man is stuck and takes a longer journey than he meant to, with Mino as his guide.
Relationships: Lovey-Dove & Pigeon Man, Mino & Pigeon Man
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	A New Path

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Siver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siver/gifts).



The professor looked up from his microscope, muttering words under his breath that he’d long ago stopped caring whether anyone heard or not. He had nothing to go on whatsoever and this blasted case would be the death of him. He looked over at the green coat, hanging on the shelves, and frowned a little deeper. No…probably not him. But the certain death of others if he couldn’t catch a break.

Lovey-Dove popped up her head with a sleepy coo as he took his lab coat off and left it draped over his chair. It was too hot out there to walk in long sleeves, but he needed to be moving, just like a certain crazy character he knew. It helped him think when he felt stuck.

“Going for a walk,” he informed her. “You coming?” It wasn’t really a question anymore. She always did.

As an afterthought, he grabbed the sensor he’d made, figuring he’d run it one more time over the crater in the park. It hadn’t yielded any answers thus far but it wasn’t as if he had any other ideas. He and Lovey proceeded out the door and headed that way.

The park, when they arrived, was crowded with children running around and playing near the old fountain. He avoided them with fastidious care; he’d never had much use for children. As usual, his thoughts turned back to the machine in the basement; Jowd’s daughter had long ago gone from “child” to “puzzle” in his thoughts. Not for the first time, he considered whether he should question her himself about the machine she’d built and the events of that day. In the end, though, would it gain any more information than the initial investigation had yielded? Cabanela had made it clear she didn’t know what had happened. The professor looked around at the running, shrieking children again—there was a particularly boisterous blonde one that seemed to be the loudest of the lot—and shuddered. No. Children who made so much noise, who didn’t know when to be still, were one of the great mysteries he was willing to let remain unsolved.

They were running all around the crater where the meteor had fallen. He’d gotten everything he could out of there long since anyway—the government had confiscated any traces of meteorite they’d found and he presumed they’d locked them away— and he found himself wandering past to the fountain, long unmaintained, and pulled himself up on the concrete seat. It was shadier here, and cooler by the water. He peered up at Mino, the town mascot. Its round, empty eyes seemed to bore into his own, and he turned away from the creepy lump of concrete. If he’d wanted dead eyes staring accusingly at him, he would have stayed as the medical examiner. Lovey, however, had no such compunctions, and she cooed happily and flew up to perch at the top.

“What’s up there? Anything?”

She flapped her wings a little and bobbed her head. He waited a moment. She didn’t come down. He fell to thinking a little more about the things he’d found. Blast the ministry of science for not letting him have a chunk of the meteor anyway. What he could do with that… the secrets he might find… what was Mino anyway? What was it supposed to represent? His eyelids were growing heavy. It was time to get home.

“Lovey?” He tilted his head back and she wasn’t there. The statue’s head remained empty. He waited another moment, trying not to get worried. Finally, he walked around to the back of the fountain; she wasn’t there, but he made a discovery: Mino was hollow. He called into the echoing cavern, and listened for his voice to come back. The echo sounded strangely like Lovey-Dove calling him.

Tentatively, he stepped into the cavern, listening to water drip somewhere. A few steps further in, and the air got noticeably cooler. He turned to look behind him. The entrance had disappeared. His eyes narrowed. This wasn’t usual. Was he dreaming, perhaps? But he was on the job. He could feel the chill of the floor seeping into his shoes, and he began to shiver without his coat. Would a dream really feel so real?

He heard the coo echoing from somewhere and looked up. Lovey-Dove circled in a halo of light, dropping down slowly onto his head. “Well, at least you’re here, eh, my girl?” he said to her, and she nestled smugly into his hair.

“So where are we going exactly…?” he murmured, and followed the shaft of sunlight forward. At least it was a little warmer. Somewhere up ahead he could hear cackling laughter; he didn’t like it. It sounded cold, and as if the person laughing found nothing at all humorous. Nevertheless, it was someone else in this strange world and he found himself hurrying a little faster, trying to catch up. The laughter drifted away, and a blue flame urged him on.

“Now hold on a minute.” He stepped dea— _stone still,_ he corrected himself. “I’m not ready to follow the light. I’m not entering some ghost world here.”

The stone cavern shuddered around him, as if Mino had rocked in a shrug. The world melted away and he dropped into an endless field of stars, Lovey still tucked into his hair and snoozing as if none of this meant a thing.

All right. So this _was_ a dream then, he concluded, or he was dying after all, and so he let himself fall into eternity, passing stars and moons, and a few fish. At one point, a tiny ship filled with men in uniform packed in like sardines swam past him. Their eyes shone out at him like big golden glassy windows. Filled with the absurdity of it all, he waved. One of them twitched a hand back; it looked like he couldn’t move otherwise. The professor could sympathize. He knew what it was like to feel stuck. He drifted further downward, and looked down. Below him and getting closer, he could see someone standing on a great red field. She reached a hand out to him and he caught it, alighting gently on the ground and staring into the huge sad eyes of Jowd’s daughter. She let his hand go and walked back into the dark. He—awoke.

His eyes snapped open and he peered around. The young girl just beginning to reach out for his shoulder jumped back. “Hey. Mister pigeon man, are you OK?” Her blonde ringlets bounced as she jiggled in place, ready to run back to be with her friends, but wanting to make sure he would be all right.

“Hmph. Pigeon man?” He cleared his throat to correct her, then realized Lovey had nestled up next to him. He never slept on the job, this was true, but he hadn’t been able to get much sleep at all lately. He _must_ have drifted off. Well, he’d been on a break anyway. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” she looked him over. “My daddy has to take medicine all the time to make sure he stays healthy. Maybe you should too.”

He gave her a withering stare. “I’m healthy. Go play and leave me be.”

She shrugged and ran back into the howling mass of children. He realized as she went that she was making a beeline through the group of children for a familiar violet-haired child. Jowd’s daughter. She wasn’t running or screaming. She’d pulled out a chair and a book and was enjoying the sun in the park.

He snorted. What an afternoon. He began to pull himself to his feet, hopping off the fountain, and Lovey-Dove fluttered up, clutching something in her claws. He opened his hand, and she dropped the hunk of rock in it. He examined it closely. It was like no earthly rock he’d ever seen. It must have fallen on top of Mino and she’d retrieved it for him. He pulled the sensor out and ran it over the stone, which lit up like a holiday tree.

The dream was already fading as he walked back past Mino and the meteor crater. He had a jumbled memory of…was it aliens? Floating through space? He took another look at the rock in his hand. Aliens, huh. It was a conjecture he hadn’t considered, but he was willing to try anything at this point.

Much later that night, he remembered Mino and the questions he’d wondered about the strange mascot, and pulled open his reference books. Mino could mean a lot of things, he read. It could be a type of raincoat made from straw. It could even mean a child, or a conjugated form of “mine”. That would certainly fit with the cavern he now only barely remembered. He scoffed at the last entry, “ _a magic spell cast by a supernatural being to confuse, disorient, or make people lose their way,”_ and closed the book with unnecessary force. Spells, pah, when he had research to do. There were aliens to track down, and a man’s life to save.

**Author's Note:**

> Alien conjecture had to come from SOMEWHERE, right. I hope you enjoyed it! Happy Exchange Day!


End file.
